Anne Of Green Gables

In preparation for Sunday school, Marilla sews three new dresses for Anne; however, Marilla’s preference for plain and sensible clothes upsets Anne, who was hoping for a dress with puffed sleeves, which “are so fashionable now” (93). Marilla, who doesn’t have time for Anne’s nonsense, reminds her to be grateful.

Sunday morning, Marilla’s headache prevents her from going with Anne to church, so she sends her along with stern warnings about being on time and behaving herself. On the way, Anne decorates her plain sailor hat with a cornucopia of buttercups and wild roses. When she approaches the group of young girls outside the church, her wild attire makes them question her even more: all the girls “had already heard queer stories about Anne” (95), and they whisper about her behind her back. During school, Anne knows all the answers to the teacher’s questions, but she does not care—all she can focus on is that all the girls have dresses with puffed sleeves.

When she returns home, Anne tells Marilla about the service and responds to Marilla’s questions with dutiful solemnity until she confesses to staring out the window for most of the sermon and “imagin[ing] all sorts of splendid things” (97) instead of listening to the speaker’s boring message. Though Marilla reprimands her for her sacrilege, she secretly agrees with Anne about the nature of the preacher’s sermons.

A few days later, after a visit with Mrs. Rachel, Marilla finds out that Anne decorated her Sunday hat with common roadside flowers and chastises Anne for her vanity. However, Marilla is mainly concerned that the entire town talked about Anne’s strange behaviors and finds Anne’s oddities to reflect poorly on Marilla. Anne cries and asks if Marilla wants to return her to the orphanage. Upset that she has made Anne cry, Marilla instead tells her that they will be going over to the Barrys’ home today, and Anne can meet their daughter, Diana.

This hope of having a true friend sets Anne into a whirlwind of emotion, and Marilla must force her to act normal, for she knows that Diana’s mother is a strict woman who does not let just anyone play with her daughter. Anne’s initial responses to Mrs. Barry’s welcome are her typical odd responses, but she soon meets Diana, “a very pretty little girl, with her mother’s black eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, and [a] merry expression” (103). Happy that her daughter will put books down and spend time outside, Mrs. Barry sends the girls out to get acquainted.

Orchard Grove’s lush garden provides the perfect scope for Anne’s imagination, and she is spurred into dramatic flair from the moment she and Diana are alone. She asks Diana to be her “bosom friend” (104), and Diana reveals that she is quite glad to have a friend next door. They swear their allegiance to each other—though Diana is first put-off by the concept of “swearing”—and pledge to remain friends forever. They part for the day with promises to spend the next day together.

On the way home, Marilla asks Anne if she found Diana to be a kindred spirit, and by Anne’s response, it is clear that she adores Diana. They have already made plans to exchange poetry books, pictures, and songs, not to mention naming the local spring The Dryad’s Bubble in accordance with Anne’s usual renaming of natural wonders. When they reach Green Gables, Matthew is waiting with a box of chocolate sweets for Anne, and she immediately asks if she can share them with Diana. Marilla, while fussing at Matthew for spoiling Anne, thinks to herself how wonderful it is that Anne is not a selfish child and tells Matthew that “it seems as if [Anne had] been here always” (107). 

One early afternoon, Marilla watches as Anne engages in a deep and energized conversation with Matthew instead of doing her sewing. She shouts at Anne to come inside and get to work, and a breathless Anne reveals the topic of their conversation—an upcoming Sunday school picnic. Anne, never having been to a picnic before, is beside herself at the possibility of having one of her dreams come true. Though Marilla fusses at her for neglecting her work, she tells Anne that she will be able to attend the picnic. Anne smothers Marilla with hugs and kisses, and a “sensation of startling sweetness” (110) runs through Marilla. She forces Anne to sit down and get to work, but instead, Anne spends 10 minutes talking about her morning with Diana, the woods around Orchard Grove, her looks, the upcoming picnic, and the potential of eating ice cream for the first time.

The following Sunday, Marilla wears her amethyst brooch, an old and valuable family heirloom, to church. Anne is struck by the beauty of the purple stone and admits that she couldn’t even pay attention to the speaker’s sermon due to the brooch’s brilliant violet hues refracting in the sunlight through the church windows.

The day before the picnic, Marilla notices that her amethyst brooch is missing from the top of her dresser. She asks Anne if she has seen it, and Anne admits to trying it on earlier in the day. Though Marilla searches everywhere for the brooch, she cannot find it, and she immediately thinks Anne has taken it out of her room and lost it. Anne vehemently denies this, and Marilla sends her to her room, believing that Anne probably took it as a plaything for her imagination games and is lying to cover up her guilt.

Marilla tells Matthew that the brooch is missing and that Anne must be punished for taking it, but Matthew refuses to take part in any punishment of Anne. Meanwhile, Anne adamantly proclaims her innocence until Marilla tells her she cannot go to the Sunday school picnic until she’s confessed. The next morning, Anne tells Marilla she is ready to confess and relays a tragic story just as Marilla had imagined—Anne took the brooch down to the brook to play pretend games with Diana, and the brooch slipped into the brook, never to be seen again. Marilla is angrier that Anne has delivered this confession “without the least apparent compunction or repentance” (120) than she is about the loss of the brooch and swiftly issues Anne’s punishment: no picnic. This sends Anne into another despondent fit, and she throws herself on her bed in tears.

Marilla calls Anne down to eat at lunchtime, but Anne refuses because her “heart is broken” (121). Marilla turns to Matthew for sympathy but finds none; he wants to let Anne go to the picnic because she has set her heart on it. Alone in her misery, Marilla refuses to bend on Anne’s punishment.

A few moments later, Marilla goes to her trunk to find her black lace shawl that needs mending. She is surprised to find the amethyst brooch attached to the shawl. Realizing that she must have lain the shawl on the dresser and caught the brooch by mistake, she wonders why Anne would ever have confessed to a crime she didn’t commit. She rushes to Anne’s room, and Anne reveals that the threat of losing the picnic without a confession drove her to create this elaborate story as a ruse. Yet again, Marilla is torn between laughing and teaching Anne a valuable lesson. She tells Anne that it is wrong to tell lies and then informs her that she may go to the picnic.

That evening, an exhausted but happy Anne returns with vivid tales of all the beautiful things she had seen and done at the picnic. For once, “words fail [her]” (124) in describing just how perfect the afternoon has been. After Anne goes to bed, Marilla confides in Matthew that she should never have doubted Anne, for she never knew Anne to be a liar.